Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Microbots4Enviro (Versatile Micromotors for Photocatalytic Environmental Remediation)
Reporting period: 2020-07-01 to 2022-06-30
Environmental pollution, especially water pollution, is causing significant deleterious effects on marine life and even human health. Access to clean water has always been the most basic desire of many people in developing countries. Herein, this “Versatile Micromotors for Photocatalytic Environmental Remediation” project designs and fabricates novel self-propulsion micromotors, which can transform the chemical fuels into kinetic energy and then automatically “fly” in the fluid, to remove the polluting substances in the contaminated water in an efficient and controlled manner.
The adoption of nano/micromotors for environmental remediation is a cutting-edge concept, which also contains multidiscipline knowledge and skills. These tiny intelligent “on-the-fly” micromotors can transform energy from their environment to autonomous movement and therefore usually exhibit a more efficient degradation of organic pollutants as compared to the stationary ones because of the enhanced mixing and mass transfer and effective contact probability in the water by vigorous movement. Hence, this project offers an efficient and intelligent method to address the global environmental degradation challenge, which finally contributes to Sustainable Development Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation.
Objectives of this Marie Skłodowska Curie Action (MSCA) have been to (i) develop novel photocatalytic micromotors to clean polluted water bodies under the illumination of visible light, (ii) establish the composition-microstructure-performance-application relationship of photocatalytic micromotors via advanced characterization and analysis techniques, and (iii) understand the effect of size and structure on the movement behavior of micromotors via visualized path tracking method. A parallel objective of the MSCA Individual Fellowship is to foster the career development of the individual researcher.
The adoption of nano/micromotors for environmental remediation is a cutting-edge concept, which also contains multidiscipline knowledge and skills. These tiny intelligent “on-the-fly” micromotors can transform energy from their environment to autonomous movement and therefore usually exhibit a more efficient degradation of organic pollutants as compared to the stationary ones because of the enhanced mixing and mass transfer and effective contact probability in the water by vigorous movement. Hence, this project offers an efficient and intelligent method to address the global environmental degradation challenge, which finally contributes to Sustainable Development Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation.
Objectives of this Marie Skłodowska Curie Action (MSCA) have been to (i) develop novel photocatalytic micromotors to clean polluted water bodies under the illumination of visible light, (ii) establish the composition-microstructure-performance-application relationship of photocatalytic micromotors via advanced characterization and analysis techniques, and (iii) understand the effect of size and structure on the movement behavior of micromotors via visualized path tracking method. A parallel objective of the MSCA Individual Fellowship is to foster the career development of the individual researcher.
Results of this MSCA are reported in the following publications. All the work is published in an open-access way, which allows all the academic and non-academic readers to have access to them.
(1) Peer-reviewed research work, which is published in. This work develops rGO/ZnO/BiOI/Co-Pi/Pt micromotors with tubular and arc geometric shapes via a template-assisted electrochemical deposition method. BiOI with the nanosheet morphology is the core material of micromotors, which is a visible-light-excited photocatalyst. The elaborately designed heterostructure helps to promote the charge separation and transport capacity of BiOI. Each micromotor exhibits vigorous stirring-like movement for self-propulsion, leading to enhanced photocatalytic dynamics for organic pollutant degradation (using Rhodamine 6G as
the dye pollutant model).
(2) Peer-reviewed review work, which is published in. This review summarized the latest progress in synthetic micromotors for treating stomach/intestinal diseases, especially via drug delivery. This review work could provide experimental and theoretical instructions for the removal of microorganisms (e.g. E. coli) in polluted water.
(3) Peer-reviewed review work, which is published in. This review gives an overview of biohybrid micromotors from the integration of biological components with artificial components and their multiple biomedical applications in targeted drug delivery, single-cell manipulation, cell microsurgery, and so on. This work exhibits a completely novel design concept to construct micromotors, which will provide material design guidelines for the next-generation micromotors, especially those with the aim to remove microorganism pollutants in the water body.
For the exploitation and dissemination of results, the Fellow has participated in 3 experimental training activities, 8 international conferences, and 8 workshops. Among them, the training at the beamline of Materials Science in the Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste (Italy) for a week is a very special and precious experience since she not only acquired the basic knowledge of the generation and utilization of radiation but also had the access to the advanced characterization equipment. Experimental operation and data analysis were conducted to offer a deep understanding of such a cutting-edge technology via measuring UPS and XPS with high energy resolution and tunable excitation energy, resonant photoemission (RPES), and near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopies. She provided supervision and mentoring for early career researchers and participated in the Ph.D. recruitment conference of UCT Prague. She is also a member of the American Chemical Society. Furthermore, she has applied for 6 Grants, including Junior Star 2022 from the Czech Science Foundation, the Humboldt Research Fellowship for Experienced Researchers from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and the Program for Distinguished Young Scholars from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, etc.
(1) Peer-reviewed research work, which is published in
the dye pollutant model).
(2) Peer-reviewed review work, which is published in
(3) Peer-reviewed review work, which is published in
For the exploitation and dissemination of results, the Fellow has participated in 3 experimental training activities, 8 international conferences, and 8 workshops. Among them, the training at the beamline of Materials Science in the Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste (Italy) for a week is a very special and precious experience since she not only acquired the basic knowledge of the generation and utilization of radiation but also had the access to the advanced characterization equipment. Experimental operation and data analysis were conducted to offer a deep understanding of such a cutting-edge technology via measuring UPS and XPS with high energy resolution and tunable excitation energy, resonant photoemission (RPES), and near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopies. She provided supervision and mentoring for early career researchers and participated in the Ph.D. recruitment conference of UCT Prague. She is also a member of the American Chemical Society. Furthermore, she has applied for 6 Grants, including Junior Star 2022 from the Czech Science Foundation, the Humboldt Research Fellowship for Experienced Researchers from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and the Program for Distinguished Young Scholars from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, etc.
This MSCA has pushed the frontiers of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary scientific research (including chemistry, semiconductor physics, material science, fluid mechanics, surface and interface engineering, and other science and engineering techniques) and practical application in environmental remediation forward in numerous ways. The three publications published in an open-access way make academia and non-academic readers gain insight into the up-to-date science and technology, specifically in terms of versatile micromotors. The “Researchers Night” that the Fellow has participated in is a public-oriented activity. The on-site interaction (via video demonstration, presentation, flyer, explanation, etc.) between the Fellow and the public, especially the kids and youths, has attracted the scientific interests of young people. The presentations (both oral and poster) that the Fellow made in the international conferences are helping attract more researchers’ attention to this project as well as the research field. Collaborations with international academic institutions (e.g. ETH Zürich, Curtin University, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces) have also been established via the conferences.
This MSCA allowed the Fellow to develop moving micro-scale machines to clean the contaminated water body with novel research methodologies and promote best practices in environmental remediation. The Fellow and her collaborators are generating important new knowledge and skills about the design concept and fabrication approaches of new micromotor-based systems that support creativity in science and engineering production and at the same time contribute to UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) via address the efficiency and controllability of current environmental remediation systems.
This MSCA allowed the Fellow to develop moving micro-scale machines to clean the contaminated water body with novel research methodologies and promote best practices in environmental remediation. The Fellow and her collaborators are generating important new knowledge and skills about the design concept and fabrication approaches of new micromotor-based systems that support creativity in science and engineering production and at the same time contribute to UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) via address the efficiency and controllability of current environmental remediation systems.